I think James Crumbley will walk free in manslaughter trial – because society blames mothers

James Crumbley is on trial for involuntary manslaughter in Michigan, charged after his son fatally shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School. His wife – the shooter's mother – Jennifer Crumbley, was found guilty of the same crime last month.

The jury in James Crumbley's trial has listened to several days of testimony. The trial is likely to conclude this week, and the jury may reach a verdict by Friday.

But I'll be surprised if James Crumbley is convicted.

Why? Because our culture routinely assigns responsibility for the behavior and safekeeping of children to mothers, even when fathers are involved in the lives of their children, and hold – or should hold – equal responsibility for their care and actions.

Crumbley parents' charges an uphill prosecution

The Crumbleys are the first parents in America to be charged with involuntary manslaughter after a mass shooting. Their son, 15, on Nov. 30, 2021, killed four students, injuring six more and a teacher, with a weapon his parents purchased for him just four days prior.

The shooter pleaded guilty in 2022 and was sentenced to life without parole. He is appealing the sentence.

Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald and her team have argued that the Crumbleys had ample reason to know their son needed therapy and missed copious warning signs, even on the day of the shooting, when they were summoned to school because their son had made alarming drawings on a school worksheet: a dead body with the caption "the thoughts won't stop, help me." The Crumbleys didn't take their son home after that meeting, or tell the school that he had access to a handgun. Hours later, he started shooting.

Legal experts had predicted it would be an uphill climb for prosecutors.

The prosecution described Jennifer Crumbley as an aloof and uncaring parent ambivalent to her son's mental distress, more wrapped up in horseback riding and an extramarital affair than in her troubled son.

Jennifer Crumbley argued the opposite, testifying that she was an involved mom who cared deeply about her son, who had, in her telling, never displayed signs of serious mental illness or distress. (James Crumbley did not take the stand in his own defense.)

But the forewoman said the jury found it persuasive that Jennifer Crumbley had been the last adult to handle the gun the shooter used; they had visited a gun range together three days before the shooting. I'd wager her own testimony that her son was a normal kid with no significant problems – that she wouldn't have done anything differently in the days before the shooting – didn't help.

Jennifer Crumbley ignored signs:Jennifer Crumbley found guilty in Oxford school shooting. One moment swayed the jury.

Mothers and fathers

A 2014 Buzzfeed investigation turned up a trend that was alarming, but not surprising: Mothers are sentenced to longer prison terms for failing to prevent abuse of their children than the men who had abused them, even when the mothers were also victims of the abuse.

One prosecutor told Buzzfeed that mothers are expected to sacrifice themselves for their children, so if a child is harmed, or worse, killed, the mother must have failed.

It resonates, because this is an instinct most mothers have. It's an instinct most parents have. But the penalty for mothers who fail to meet this standard, it seems, is much steeper.

We have a term for men who decline to participate in the lives of their children: "deadbeat dads." And while deadbeat dads certainly aren't applauded, there is no comparable term for mothers – for a mother to abandon her children is a stigma that can't be dismissed with an alliterative name.

In custody cases, a child's mother is automatically designated the primary, most suitable caregiver. When a mother loses custody, it's widely assumed that she must have done something really bad.

It's not just courts. Consider the COVID-19 pandemic, when women left the workforce en masse to care for their children, and men did not. Women perform the majority of child care, even when we earn more than our husbands. Or that women's wages suffer when we take time away from work to care for children.

Nothing short of torture:I witnessed Alabama execute a man using nitrogen gas. It was horrific and cruel.

Weighing blame

Legal experts told Detroit Free Press courts reporter Tresa Baldas that James Crumbley might appear more sympathetic than his wife. She was unfaithful. He cried at the police station.

But James Crumbley purchased the gun for his son, just four days before the shooting. Jennifer Crumbley, testifying in her own trial, said that securing the family firearms was James Crumbley's job. (He has said the gun was hidden in an armoire, and that bullets were hidden in another drawer in the armoire.)

At issue in both trials is a series of text messages their son sent to a friend, claiming he had told his parents he was in distress and asked them for help. Jennifer and James Crumbley both said they never saw those messages, that their son didn't ask for help, that they were unaware of his distressed state.

A jury believed Jennifer Crumbley ought to, at least, have secured the family weapons. That she should have done something differently.

So I wonder how a jury will weigh James Crumbley's responsibility. If the shooter's mother was responsible for the gun, doesn't his father, who bought it for him, bear some of that weight? If his mother should have noticed something, shouldn't his father?

If James Crumbley is convicted, it won't mean our culture has shaken off its bad old ideas about maternal responsibility. But it would be an acknowledgement that fathers aren't spectators in their own homes. And that in this case, two adults could have prevented this awful tragedy.

Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press, where this column first published. Reach her at nkaffer@freepress.com